An Analysis of Students’ Difficulties in Writing Argumentative Essay in English Department of HKBP Nommensen University

Abstract

This study deals with an analysis of student’s difficulties in writing argumentative essay in English Department of HKBP Nommensen University. The objective of this study was to found out the students’ difficulties in writing argumentative essay. The object of this study was the sixth semester students of English Department teacher’s training faculty of HKBP Nommensen University Medan, Group B. This study used descriptive qualitative research. The data were collected by giving a writing test. Based on the data analysis, the students were difficulties in organizing idea, grammatically or language use, mechanics, vocabulary, and content. And generally students’ difficulties were mostly cause by organizing idea like they did not know how to create an argumentative essay in the correct way like thesis statement, body, and conclusion. So they were not able to understand the organizing idea analysis clearly. The result of this study showed that the sixth semester students of HKBP Nommensen University Medan had some difficulties in organizing idea in argumentative essay.